Are you ready for mastery? Socratess by InfoMentor is a unique leadership self-assessment tool that helps you implement Mastery Learning in your school. Education legislation, resources, curriculum and assessment arrangements and pupil outcomes all represent tough challenges for school leadership. As countries are seeking to adapt their education systems to the needs of society, expectations for schools and school leaders are changing. School leaders have greater freedom in their decision-making. InfoMentor will be discussing these issues at this year’s Bett Show, and you can find them at Stand B200.

The reading aloud of formal lesson objectives in the style of, ‘By the end of today’s lesson you will be able to…’ often fails to capture the attention and interest of our pupils or students. Many carry on doodling and treat the objectives as something the teacher is obliged to recite on a par with the formality of taking the register. The Big Picture lesson plan is designed to raise interest levels, promote concentration and draw the students or pupils into full participation.

SOLO evangelist Lisa Ashes has a new method for students to observe their progress in lessons. Using her Year 12 English class as an example, she asks 3 questions to each pupil, who after reviewing their answers, appreciate how deeper methods of exploration help them acquire a different perspective and achieve a higher level of understanding.

The way that I create a meta cognitive wrapper is by carefully creating three questions that will start and end my lesson; the questions link directly to my learning outcomes.

The first question is about the current knowledge and understanding of the student. The second should embody the type of SOLO thinking; research, analysis, evaluation and/or creation of new ideas.

My final question asks pupils to think about the processes they are about to undertake, to prove they have learnt something.